"Ambam's father Bitam used to display the same behaviour if he had handfuls of food to carry," said Ridges. "Ambam also has a full sister, Tamba, and a half sister at Howletts (another British nature park), who also sometimes stand and walk in the same way."

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It will be interesting to see if, over the next centuries, more gorillas find that erect walking has a real survival advantage. If that turns out to be the case, will there be an increase in frontal lobe brain size? It appears that man's evolutionary development started with bipedal locomotion followed by increased cranial capacity. Is this adaption on the part of some gorillas a recurrence of the same evolutionary theme?